Brennan Edwards – Virginia Country-Bluegrass Folk

when you L and Lear Crash and [Applause] Burn Hearts get broke the table turn you lose your love welcome back to the rugged Revival podcast we're absolutely blessed to have with us here today Brennan Edwards uh Brennan is a singer songwriter hailing from Winchester Virginia uh Bren music is a heartfelt relatable blend of country Bluegrass and folk uh all delivered by Brennan's unmistakably awesome uh Soulful voice uh Brennan's easily one of my favorite artists right now so I'm really pleased to be able to catch him in his busy week and busy moments right now and I encourage anyone to go out and listen to his music because it's uh it's something that I absolutely love at the moment so how are you Brennan how are you doing mate I'm good great awesome how's your week going so far good uh my wife is [Music] fully um she has fully dove into the world of of bread so we've had a lot of bread we had Bagels this morning hemade Bagels awesome man so it's been a good week on that front well that sounds an interesting week but I didn't mind mate um so we we'll dive straight into things I think uh people wanting to get to know you and your background in terms of what you've been up to and and who you are particularly you're you're from Virginia um talk to us about that talk to us about your upbringing and um you know what what you're currently doing um currently um trying to get organized um I mean that's that's pretty much the bulk of it of my time lately um doing gigs on the weekend and trying to stay busy with that and I've kind of had like the last three years has been sort of like an autopilot like I got into a pretty good routine of doing the same kind of gigs and have having like just a set routine of how that worked and it's been good but there I guess there comes a time when you gotta move forward from what's just easiest and most convenient and I guess what's been holding me back from that is the organization of it of everything with booking and uh staying up to date on like putting out content and and everything like that which I'm I'm not very inclined to do naturally you know making the videos and and stuff like that but but trying to get a pretty good trying to turn it more into a work schedule that is like manable no that makes sense and um I speak to a lot of people and artists over the last few weeks and months where it's difficult trying to be not just the artist now and something that you put out on Instagram this week made me laugh it was the Seinfeld skit about you know not just being the artist but actual you know put putting out the content and being the social media manager as well so is that like you say is that the hardest thing that you you're kind of having to put up with at the moment um I don't know because for a couple weeks there I found it really easy or I don't know it comes and goes but yeah I'd say it's that kind of stuff is the hardest for me just because um I don't know I don't know what it is about it that's so daunting but taking videos of yourself and I feel like there's a lot of self-examination that goes into it or that just comes with it versus like I don't feel that way about playing shows because you're kind of just in the moment and you're just doing it you don't you know you don't necessarily go back and review what you just did you know you take a video of yourself playing and then you got to watch it and make sure you think it's good enough it's like well of course it's not good enough no no that's great I mean the first time I I probably kind of started listening to your stuff was when you were doing the Instagram lives and uh is it the walking mall that you spend a lot of time um with your recordings and and playing and you know I found that really interesting I I jumped on one of your lives not too long ago just to kind of have a real good listen and amazing bu You Bing okay cool yeah so is that something that you regularly do then it's something I should do more regularly I used to a lot more and over this summer I didn't spend like any time out there doing it which it's like it's almost like free money if you're not doing anything and it's a nice day you guys sit down there and just play and see what see if you can make some money and um it's kind of weird how it goes because you know I feel like the first 20 minutes you get nothing just people passing by and then uh um and then all once once somebody breaks the seal and throws something in the bucket it's like then people start and it it you would think that would be like they're encouraged by seeing other people do it or like seeing it in there but I don't think that most like most of the people that do it you see them get out the a couple bucks 50 feet away and they they didn't just see see anybody throw it in so it's I don't know it's a weird thing but I I should um I should definitely have taken the opportunity this year a lot more than I did so we had these weird warm days going in the fall and I kind of went into hyperdrive with it like I'm gonna go down there like as often as I can before it gets cold um but it's definitely it's nice we have it's like a pedestrian Mall it used to be a a through Street for for cars to drive way back in the day but they turned into you know basically a giant sidewalk you know it's like the main uh downtown area for all the shops and stuff um so we're lucky to have it for busing if you go to like other you know big cities and stuff like that I've done I've busked in Atlanta when I was there once and um made made a little bit of money but it's like you're fighting all the noise and not everywhere has this I guess is what I'm getting at you know so it's it's a nice thing uh for musicians definitely mate it's um I mean I I've seen recently the stuff that you've been putting out and it seems like you you've had a bit of an explosion and you you can put it into your own words in terms of you know how things are moving forward it seems like things are happening and you're picking up a lot of gigs and I'm I'm looking at you on your your Facebook and your Instagram and you seem to be playing most weekends now so have you kind of found a scene where you're playing more regularly more at the weekend and um at proper gigs I mean what what's the scene like where you are at the moment um like here in Winchester the scene is really great for being an independent musician now like if you're um as far as you know for anyone who's not uh who's not a musician themselves not out there gigging and stuff it's kind of hard to understand like how different types of gigs work but you kind of have these like Hometown like small town gigs where you get a flat rate so they pay you x amount of money to come and play for x amount of time there's no ticket sales you know you're you're just um like hired entertainment for people that are coming regular patrons versus like music venue where it's centered around the show and people are just buying tickets to come see a show the easiest way to go about it is to do those flat rate shows at like a bar and grill at a brewery at you know just a bar um you know that's like job security because you know what you're going to make um you just show up you do your job job and you get paid and that's for the last like two years I've I've been pretty booked up every weekend with those don't the thing is like I was talking about uh getting better with like organization and stuff I play a lot of gigs that I don't really advertise well I don't like put a lot of because it believe it or not I'm sure you understand but to anyone who's listening that doesn't understand it's a lot of work to put into advertising because it takes the time to make it and then the cross post it it it ends up being like you know if you were to dedicate your and that's the other thing you got to be focused the type of person who can like you know get on their social media without getting caught in the real the reals and all that stuff um and there's a lot of road boxs that come into play so it ends up being one of those things where you're not really inclined to to really worry so much about advertising and content and stuff like that but I guess it's all about self-discipline but um yeah of course if you're doing like ticketed shows it's a lot more incentivized you have a lot more of an incentive to try to push it and get people to to come out because otherwise they're not going to versus if I'm playing at X um you know just insert any bar and grill or place they have their like built-in crowd I'll post it up on my Facebook and maybe my Instagram story but it's hard to justify like saturating your news feed on everything with like a month's worth of that's then here's the other thing if you have a website with like a touring schedule then that's where you would post all that stuff but I you know that's one of the things I'm working on right now is trying to get my website built and basically get kind of the the routine I've built of into a more organized routine going forward and um to roundabout answer your question I think if I can remember where I where I got off on this tangent um there has been like an uptick and kind of kind of like you know with what I'm doing similar to when I put out my first release there was like a big uptick in like um you know people's interest in in my music and wanting to book me and and stuff like that but with this it's like it's like the next step which is like you start actually doing like real touring shows or trying to and that's just a whole another world you know versus like the the easy gigs where you know you're just going and getting paid to show up and play and um it takes a team it takes a you know a village to do all that the next step of stuff and do you have a manager that's that's helping I saw there was a a booking guy on your yeah now I I've just taken on a manager and a booking agent in the last like month um so yeah so it's a it's like a weird in between spot I'm in right now of like moving from one to the next yeah age of things it must be difficult for you mate like you say going from doing your thing and and kind of um making it as good as you can to finding that next level and and getting the support you need to to to get organized because it's a it's only a finite amount of time within your week to to do that and to to create the music and do everything else it must be incredibly difficult but um I mean how how did you get into music in the first place Brennan just kind of Daring it back slightly are you from a musical family so on my mom's side this gets mentioned a lot more because of um and I think it's because of the type of music that I play and it makes sense to go along along with it but um my mom's side of the family is are they're all into Bluegrass or some very ation of Bluegrass when I was a kid they were all like pretty much strictly playing Bluegrass they were very like know they weren't really much into anything else they weren't playing anything else um all of her siblings and my grandma plays fiddle a little bit and and stuff like that um so on her side of the family you know everybody basically but her she p and stuff she doesn't play any instruments so that's like the million dollar question she gets is like do you play anything and uh but so they all play and I grew up with them playing Bluegrass but more so I was more influenced by my dad which doesn't really get like mentioned just because you know like in all the BIOS and the introductions and stuff they always mention my blueg grass roots and um I kind of just for the sake of Simplicity have left it alone but more of my influence was in was from my dad with the stuff he was listening to he also plays guitar uh he was in a band in high school he was actually in a hardcore band now that's who even knows what that really means because back then it was a totally different thing you know it was than what it means today but um he was into he's into like you know grun and heavy metal and more more in the grunge side of things but you know we listen to all the spectrum of rock was my main influence as a kid so we we were always going to concerts um more so it was that side of things that I was into when I was younger so you know we went and saw slipnot death tones uh my first concert was mly crew cool um I've seen Black Sabbath Death Leopard um who else corn uh I can't even remember we went to a lot of concerts when I was young but and then on top of that you know like sprinkled throughout I us I started playing the mandolin sometime in elementary school and I would go to Bluegrass festivals with my grandma and my aunts and uncles and I enjoyed that stuff I enjoyed going I enjoyed playing it but it definitely wasn't like the majority of what I was into growing up it kind of flipped sometime around like Middle School where I started to like my interest started to go more towards traditional music and old school country and so my biggest influences for that were um I always liked David Allen Co I always liked his his music and um and Conway Twitty so I remember being like I remember being in middle school and like having a uh an MP3 player with like all this other stuff I was listening to but then you know David Allen Co and Conway Twitty and I didn't really know anything else though like I didn't like Radio country um that was like you know popular at the time but of course like then you hear Hank Williams Jr I Lov Hank Jr as soon as I heard him early on and um and then it was Hank senior Hank Williams Senior was was really the thing that like uh really got me into like old oldtime old school country music and uh like all from the time I started listening to him till now like that's the majority of my music library is a lot is Hank Williams so but everything else kind of just comes along you know I and ALS also I got to include Whiskey Myers Whiskey Myers was like my first introduction to the independent like alt country Southern Rock scene that I'd say I'd almost say that I'm kind of becoming a part of because that's that's different than what I'm doing but they're definitely like a a big I would call them you know pioneers of of what's currently going on with with what's popular and taking this like sub genre independent scene into the what's now pop culture you know what I mean um and that was you know around Middle School I remember my cousin showed me broken window no serenade and then I went to I went to see Leonard skinnard at this at this uh County Fair like an hour from here with my buddy Cody and this was like a month after I started listening to Whiskey Myers and I didn't even know this but they were opening so then I got to see them live and I was hooked um and then you know like I say it kind of just snowballs from there it uh with the way the world is today with technology you know it's just a rabbit hole of good music no it's really interesting I mean you mentioned so many genres there like you say going all the way back but um I mean I I hear a lot of like you said the traditional country and the music that you're pulling out now you know your new EP stones that have literally just come out hasn't it I was listening to it again today and it's it's very introspect so it's um you know there's a lot lot of kind of messages about letting go personal growth and and things like moving forward you know kind of dropping those kind of issues behind you and you know it's interesting you know the music that you talk about with whiskey Meyers lonard skard and I'm hearing a lot more of that with 49 wichester and and those sort of acts coming out now and um I'm I'm pretty going a long winded way back around but I'm interested to hear what kind of stuff is on your radio because in the UK it's very hard to get away from the pop country scene so if you're talking about like Morgan whan you know that that's just plastered all over the place in the UK and I find it very hard to try and find stations that actually play some of the less known artists or the more traditional artists and you know people that play your type of music so I have to go online and listen to Internet radio stations like in in Texas there a great station I always mention called the the ranch and U there's a lot of great music on there but is it the same way you are is it is it difficult to kind of find you know stations that are are playing your kind of music or is it all quite commercial where you are I'd say it's not even worth trying um because you can but it's that that's the thing about r is like it's such a gamble or it can either be a big gamble or a lot of waiting around or you know exactly what you're going to get so you know these five stations that are like prominent in my area I know what they're going to play like the rock station I I remember working at this cabinet shop back in uh 2020 and or 2019 you know whatever it is but um but I remember I realizing just how much of clockwork the rotation was and it was like you know if I came in one day and and there was two guys that I worked with and if one got there first he was going to put on his Spotify and funny enough that was how I found out about cter wall was his Spotify rotation I was like who is this and people throw this around and any I don't I have a hard time like not knowing this is like a regular you know in his 30s adult but at the time I legitimately thought that that it was an 80-year old man I F that yeah well people say that about about him and about other people and now that I I I I don't know if it's just because I know that he's not it seems a little exaggerated but then looking back not that it that he you know it it does sound very traditional very he does sound very distinctly old and old timey in a great way but I remember thinking that it was like some underground unheard of old man that was just a badass and I was like where do you find this kind of music and it was motorcycle by cter wall I'll never forget it and uh but then if the other guy got there first he was putting on 993 and I remember you know this one week he he was getting there early every day and it was like a whole week of having to listen to it all day and it was legitimately the same exact songs at the same exact times I could be like well it's almost 11:45 it's time for you know Dream On by AOS Smith to come on and uh but then you know there's been times where I was stuck with just radio where like I don't know my I didn't have a way to play music off my phone driving around so I would you know I'd experiment around and try out you know all these different stations and every now and again you land on you're you just happen to be in an area where you're picking up this weird station and I'm like well what is this and they're playing Jin and Jin smoking lies uh by turnpike tributors I think that's the title of it um at 10:30 at night and I remember I remember that sitting in this Walmart parking lot somewhere and that song came on some random radio station like well I guess somebody's playing you know this kind of off-the-wall good independent music or you know I don't for lack of a better term independent music and then if I go on my Spotify for artists and look you know there's some stations that are spinning my stuff but it's like just a hand ful and they're like in random places so I guess you know it happens but like I say it's just not worth trying to find one that does at least not to me I I got you know you I just use apple music and sometimes I just listen to what I have and then every now and again I get like a wild hair where I'm like you know just randomly like I want to find some new music today I'll you know just let it Let It Go off into the algorithmic you know cycle and show me some new stuff but no the I mean the radio here is is like you're saying it's but at the same time it's weird because um I was listening to I went through was like well let's see what they're PL I did this the other day it's funny you're asking me because I don't do it very often but I was like let's see what's coming on the radio nowadays and I put on the like the local big country station and garbage um not to be a hater but it was like the typical stuff um stuff I don't even know who these guys are they just sound like guys that were really popular five years ago but then I put on the pop station and I had some help came on post Millennium Morgan wall and I'm like well this I my brain started going crazy because I'm like this is like a Run DMC um Aerosmith like moment in history where they're like breaking the J the genra for charting and stuff like that and I just started thinking about you know financially that's a that's crazy you know because they're they're getting put on country radio they're getting put on pop radio like it's everywhere you go you go walk into a business you might hear it playing and I just thought that was pretty crazy that um it it gave me some insights into the game they're playing there pretty B time but then stick season came on after that and I was like you know a year ago this was like this was like an underground Smash Hit and it wasn't something I mean at least I don't know I didn't know that if it was I didn't know that Noah con was that uh popular in the main stream I know he's kind of respected amongst like the pop scene uh you know before his big breakout and stuff but he was on like our local pop station and I was like that's pretty crazy to think about how that because I would have considered that to be more of the you know underground scene um the more traditional stuff it's it's interesting because I was yeah one of the guys that we had on on the previous podcast Josh Mitchum who's from uh Kentucky and he he plays a lot of festivals now outside of Kentucky in in places like Florida and he was he was saying you know it's very difficult for guys outside of the kind of Nashville machine to to kind of break into the industry and to break into these bigger bigger kind of gigs that that people are picking up and I don't know if there's a little bit of snobbery going on from from Nashville or whether that's just the way things are kind of manufactured in that way there I mean are you finding it difficult to kind of break out of of um Virginia or are you more comfortable kind of in your your Zone where you are right now cuz you I suppose you're very quite early on into what you're doing aren't you you know um it's hard to say because to me it feels like it's been so long since I started gigging it all but in the grand scheme of things you know depending on what perspective I look at it you know it all kind of is just coming out of infancy and leading up to getting to this point where I feel like it's coming out of its infancy my like music career um like it's actually just now starting to take shape but just before it got to this point it feels like it it had felt like it was starting to get to be like a seasoned thing for me but now it's like you know you reach this Milestone you step over that threshold and it's like you're back to a new form of um you really realize that you're actually just stepping into an a like your you know your first real steps you know I didn't even realize I obviously I didn't think I was doing anything that crazy but I thought um I didn't think of it the same way it it's weird how it can feel more like like I just was a an infant who's now learning how to walk is the way I feel about it now and um I guess you know I guess that's just kind of you know it's weird what your self-awareness can feel like in it all but but that's a good thing because at least I think so because I think a lot of people had this and people talk about this you know having this mindset of like if I get to this place it'll all be good like if I could just do this it would all you know work out I'd be happy with everything but you know there's no like destination there's there's just multiple stops there's just like higher points you can go and I guess it's also kind of it's kind of refreshing to know that there's a lot more thresholds to cross because um you know it's not so much this the that um I'm not so much worried about a sense of like I don't know stagnancy is a really scary thing the feeling that you're not going to be able to keep the water flowing or you don't know how you're going to keep it going so yeah it's an interesting way to look at it like you say some people just want to kind of get to the end zone uh so to speak as quickly as they can but you know from what what I hear and see of what you're doing you seemed a really chilled out guy and it's just one step at a time and and we'll we see what it where it takes you it was interesting because as soon as I put the kind of promo out for for this particular one I've never seen so much love for a you know a guest coming on you know as soon as the Instagram message went out that you were coming on the show it must have been half of U Virginia commented liked and uh you know we're engaging with it and I thought that's great you must have a really cool kind of community around you of of folk that are supporting you and I think that's really great maybe sometimes you don't see that if you're the artist and you're kind of in the mix of what you're doing it's hard to kind of see outside of that scope but from my perspective it I I think you got the most engagement from any any guest so far so I I thought that was really interesting so is is that what your community is like is very supportive in terms of new music new artists and and Independent Artists yeah so uh I would definitely say so and it's it's good to hear you say that be um we're good to to hear that because a big trouble is is the feeling that you're falling through the cracks like that you're getting forgotten about and uh that's that's certainly not the case here in my hometown but but at times it becomes a thing like um where you get used to what you're doing and I feel like everybody else does too so if you just keep doing the same thing in the same places like nobody's going to care for that long they're still going to think you know what they think about your music and your and what you're doing but like the newness wear is off for everybody so there's got to be something more new stuff to to pay attention to but definitely a very supportive Community around here um not just for myself but we have a lot of other artists from here in Winchester in the surrounding area and um there's a very a very tight-knit community of listeners um and everybody's always doing their best to to you know support as much as they can um and even Beyond this area we have you know almost like adoptive people I don't know any of other way to put it any other word to use but people who aren't even from here they're you know they might be from an hour and a half away but they're kind of part of our like Winchester Community now just because of the music theme um but uh but yeah I think it's a dangerous thing to be doing things from a place where you feel panicked like everybody's forgetting about you or like you're falling through the cracks you're not doing enough like there's a weird fear motivation and panic motivation creates like it's just never a good thing it's like hitting it'll make you hit a brick wall real fast versus motivation that comes from the positive which is like you know you see the gears start moving and you kind of just like you kind of just grab it and spin it a little faster versus when you feel like it's jammed up and you're trying to force it you know and uh so it's good to hear that that from the outside perspective there's a lot of interests and uh excitement around you know the music and stuff like that because sometimes it's hard to tell you know yeah absolutely and I think that's you know is a double-edged sword when you think about social media and I think that's one of the positives and it was interesting talking to Jared Morris who we had recently and he he had a positive spin on it to say well you know back in the day before social media you didn't have the opportunity just to pick up your iPhone or whatever you've got and just film yourself and put it out there you're in control of the content and you kind of build your own Community your own fan base overnight just from putting out and having that degree of control and I thought you know it's a really cool kind of way to look at it I mean it must be difficult I suppose if you're navigating it on your own is is there one that you've kind of looked upon that that kind of took you under their wing or showed you some of the ways and how to to be successful in in terms of what you're doing uh no there's just been some some collaborators and I think about this especially lately I've thought about this often you know there's so much so much power in winging it and not in like a careless way but not putting so much uh not being too like self-critical or not putting so much weight behind whether or not you're doing making the right move in a marketing way like my first uh I did like three demos with my with my friend Mike he's also my guitar player in my band but um shout out to Grady Smith for this term he called somebody this um recently and it's a perfect word for Mike he's like a Swiss army knife of music you know like he DJs around town he plays in my band he runs the open mic uh out at this pool hall here in town which is how I met him um he does his own gigs and stuff like makes his own music which is totally different from mine um so he's like super vers versatile he plays like basically any instrument he plays guitar for me but originally I wanted him to be my bass player um we've had times where our drummer couldn't play a gig and he fills in on drums um and I recorded these three demos at his house like early on and um and I just they were kind of just to like for shits and giggles to to like you know they were just supposed to be like work tapes basically but and looking back I find him like a little bit cringey like sloppy like like I feel like I was you know my playing and my singing was sloppy in it and like kind of careless and you know they're out there on YouTube and SoundCloud but they did Super well especially 10 chickens in a dog crate that song the original like demo of that song we did I posted on YouTube it's got like I don't know I think it's like over 30,000 views and this was on a channel that had no following it it had like over 2,000 views within like a week and like I said no following no subscribers it kind of just took off was getting shared around and it really like connected a lot of dots for me with like me getting on like Radio West Virginia and then doing Red Barn and getting like you know attention from some of these like bigger platforms and we I mean he wasn't even expecting me to put it out you know what I mean like we were just trying stuff out like messing around recording these songs and uh and I just threw it out there you know and I think there's something to be said about that you know doing things that way and not doing it so safe and like calculated and sometimes I find myself getting stuck in that kind of thinking just because that's the way the industry works it's how everybody else is doing it and it's like you want to keep up with everybody else but I think there's definitely like a level of authenticity that that can like overshadow any planned you know marketing and like making the perfect content and but I still I still find it hard to to find the fine line between like just throwing caution to the wind and putting out re just stuff that's real and just when you're feeling it you know what I mean I think people are a bit fed up sometimes of the overp poish kind of you know the machine manufactured stuff that that regularly gets kicked out on the radio and it's funny you say that you know in terms of being self-conscious about the early stuff that you put out I was listening to some podcast recently I think it was race rickets from Texas that was on and he was saying you know he was trying to do like you did record you know in his buddy's house and the noise from outside was just unbearable when he's trying to lay down the vocal so in the end I think he ended up in a in a closet just to try and get a clean vocal on on one of the tracks and he put it out there you know and and it did really well but it's interesting you know you're not in a in a proper Studio at times you you're kind of making best of what you've got and you're really self-conscious about the music but you know it's surprising what people want to hear and I think it's it's a lot of the time especially at the minute when people have got access to so many things that they want to hear that authenticity and that that kind of realness from the music that you're creating and you know I think I think that's a really cool thing but um but in terms of your you I mean going onto your Spotify and and the stuff that you've released since uh Brenan so your debut album came out in 2023 till the end of my days um so that's out there talk talk us through that how did that come about mate uh so kind of touching on the local community here and you know people who are not even from Winchester but are part of our you know local community here there's a guy named Jonathan Mitchum who is from the DC area about an hour and a half from here um we call him grandpa I think Jake con was the first one to call him Grandpa he's like he's like the local the grandpa the local scene he's a musician himself and um he he's been a huge supporter of mine like literally since day one if not day one day two um it's funny the first time I met him I went to go watch Cole Cheney play here in town at a little bar in Grill and he was in the Paul Cheney was in this weird moment of like he had booked this show before he like kind of blew up in a in a way and um you know like he booked it nine months in advance or something and by the time the show came around he was doing a lot of touring and stuff but he still did this show so it was weird that he was even playing here in town but this was early on in his like you know having his first big moments and I went to see him there I was shocked that he was playing at at this bar and grill here in town and Johnny Johnny was there and I met him I talked to for a while and ever since then um he's been like a huge supporter of mine and he actually you know had for a long time was was offering to help me you know get to a studio and to to fund a record and of some sort and it ended up being I went to see lost dog Street Band in DC in late 2022 to and I had no one to go with I had two tickets and I so I brought Johnny and I didn't actually we weren't we didn't know each other super personally up until that point you know we knew each other through the music scene and everything and then after that night we became a lot closer and uh but that night he offered to take me to this the studio and and record like he cover the whole uh he'd front the whole project so he paid for for that whole thing to get recorded and when I went in so we planned end of January we did it of 2023 and when I went in I didn't have like I didn't have like enough stuff ready to record really um this was after I had recorded those three demos so I could have done those but I don't know I just really wanted to hold out on those and so I'd say like the majority of that of that record got written like the songs were were finished within a month of recording it there were either pieces of stuff that I had that I just like went ahead and finished or like I showed up to the studio and had written the song but hadn't dialed it in yet and we did it all there so kind of just got thrown together in a way and they were all brand new songs to me and um that's pretty much the case with this new one too was the only one that was Bas basically ready you know I had played it in show at shows and stuff was uh me and the devil and it didn't get played a lot I played it on Red Barn you know but kind of the same way it was like you know very new songs I have a whole catalog of songs I play at my shows Originals that haven't been recorded at all that are like I could take them to a studio right now and know exactly how I want them done and with my first record and the newest one it was not the case they were all like brand new like they got like refined at the studio so that's interesting to think about especially like uh like I say about this catalog of songs that I have ready to go I probably have an album I definitely have a whole album worth you know I could do 10 15 songs that are unreleased that I play at shows all the time that I could go and and I know how their Arrangements will go relatively and I none of the none of my releases have been like that so far which is a weird thing everything that I've released when I went and recorded it it was still like it the song was in in its infancy so um originally that till the end of my days was going to be a whole like 10 song album but um just time and and resources got cut short so we cut it down to five songs yeah I didn't and I didn't expect the the lead track for one it wasn't going to be called till the end of my days like the ep the whole the the whole thing wasn't G to have like a title track it was just going to be I was going to call it like volume one or something but one thing led to another I named it after that song um and I was never expecting that song to be like a breakout from the rest of it it has way more success than any of the other songs so I think that all I think I kind of foreshadowed that in the final days of releasing it just because um Grady really hopped on it and like that was like the first like amongst me and Grady and our friendship and everything started with him you know checking out my music and and promoting that song like he you know shouted it out basically and and shared you know the video of me playing that on red bar and it kind of it like set the stage for that song to to just take off anyway but either way I think that it it might have just been that way it seems people really gravitate towards it so definitely it's um it's done really well and it's on our Spotify playlist you know we we really loved it um it's funny you mentioned a few kind of outlets like red bar radio um radio W WV and um Appalachia Untold I've seen you a couple of times on there and I think they're really good Outlets to discover new music new artists and people that you wouldn't necessarily come across online and you know I've come across obviously the likes yourself but Nathan best Jake con you mentioned a minute ago and he seems to be doing extremely well at the moment um is he someone that you know is he someone from the area yeah uh Jake lives well I can't say right up the road anymore because I moved um about about 30 minutes from where I was but where where my mom lives is like five minutes from Jake's house maybe 10 but we met Jake I don't know the whole introduction story with with how he met my uncle and stuff but my Uncle Buddy does a Bluegrass show once a month on his farm called Bluegrass in the barn and I guess I guess Jake and his parents um were just coming out to that when he was like I don't know between between like 10 and 12 and I think he got up in Sayang White House Road at Bluegrass in the barn when he was like 11 or 12 and uh and so my Uncle Buddy started giving Jake guitar lessons and and taught Jake guitar for a while and then you know he started gigging around here and stuff and you know we did a handful of shows together and we played up at blueg grass in the barn together a couple times and um and he he he had like a you know people were people knew about it here you know and they would go crazy when they saw Jake play and stuff but and then he did that red uh Radio West Virginia video that really blew up yeah he wasn't it um I think frostbite was the one that really really went crazy I remember the first time Jake at least if I remember correctly it was the first time played hard of stone um me and me and a guy named Trey jet used to do shows together all the time and he uh Jake came to one of our shows in this like little Pavilion in the park in Middletown up the road here there was like a handful of people there it got like almost rained out it was pouring rain like right up until we were supposed to start and like hardly anybody came but Jake and his dad came and uh I'm I was like I put him on the spot I was like Jake come up here and play something he comes up and plays some songs and then I was like I was like do do one more and then we'll get going again and he was like what was a new song I swear I'm pretty sure it was the first time he ever played it like outside of his bedroom and it was hard as Stone and I remember being like this is crazy that was one of the best songs I ever heard um and sure enough that was one of those three songs that he did that really blew up so that's that's definitely a cool story to have I you know haven't seen that three feet in front of me in front of like a few people you know the first time it ever got played um but yeah Jake's doing awesome he is man it's uh and it's funny you mentioned Cult of War you know if you've not seen Cult of war and you just list listen to him he sounds like a 80-year-old guy I mean Jake's voice is just something else you know it it just doesn't sound like something should come out of a guy that young it's amazing for sure but um so yeah I mean since you've released the stones EP it's funny because I'm going online and now I'm seeing other artists cover your music and posting that online how does that feel does that feel a bit surreal a bit weird uh it definitely felt weirdest when it like the first couple times it happened um I've only seen one so far of this new stuff I don't know if there's any others that I've missed yet on YouTube or anything but um Colton Bolan I don't know if it's Bolan or Boling but I'll have to look back but he's he's awesome he's really good he's somebody who has not gotten um attention he deserves yet um that I've been following for a while and I started following because he posted a video on Instagram of him covering till the end of my days and um and he's great he's he's really good he's got a great voice and everything but he he I saw him uh post a cover of stones the other day so I I'll have to go look around see if I can find any other covers but I've seen people cover like uh round the bend and um some guy from I remember if he if he was Swedish or or where he was from I forget but he covered 10 chickens in a dog crate and that was awesome guy in a totally different country covering a song that's not even like an official release but yeah it's always cool when you see people covering your songs it must be weird I mean particularly with Sweden and places out I know Sweden have got a kind of an underground country scene is it act called the countryside of Sam that are a seriously kind of traditional country so I know they have their own thing going on so it doesn't surprise me too much that they're covering some Brennan Edwards here man it's um I say it must be awesome to see that sort of thing online but it's funny because you know I'm I'm going on your YouTube as well so if anyone checks out Brennan's YouTube you know one of the posts that I shared on our kind of group page was your cover of Prince uh nothing compares to you cuz I thought that was such a an awesome cover cuz it's very hard to cover prince in the first um you know respect but also to do it in your own way and to do it so perfectly you know I thought it was worth sharing with our kind of uh rugged Revival group just to show you the stuff that you're putting out there that's slightly different so you know that was cool and I think that blew up quite a bit as well on on your YouTube page didn't it yeah that one was doing really well for a while there um and it would kind of it would kind of uptick from time to time so that's always a good thing um where like randomly it'll kind of just pick back up you start people checking it out more finding it but uh but yeah it would definitely it's definitely hard to cover Prince I really like his the original version of that song I like most all versions of that song that are out there um but you know I'm not I'm not a prince Super Fan or anything like that I know I know some Prince super fans but um thinking about like some of my earliest musical memories or influences you know from like the very beginning to now when doves cry is one of my favorite songs I remember that song just always sticking out to me when I was a little kid you know the crazy guitar intro and just it's it's such a distinct sound and um just all together I think that's a great song awesome yeah wish I could cover it I don't think I could cover I don't think I could do it any justice you know what I mean but that's that's a song that I really wish that I could do justice too well your first attempt didn't too too badly so perhaps you should give it a go mate and uh see see how you get on with that you might need an additional guitarist to kind of help you with that one but um so what I mean it's great you know the these stories you tell about meeting Jake con and and and the likes of that is there any other artists you've been collaborating with recently um not really I mean uh I have plans me and Cody Christian have got something in the works nothing that's you know we haven't started working on anything but we've got plans to to do a little Duo record together here soon cool man can't really get into too much detail about it because there's not too much detail about it yet but that's all I can say we're we're planning on doing something soon so that might be in a pipeline what else might you have uh kind of planned for 20125 is there anything going on is it concentrating on your music now and touring when does this when will this be live this podcast this will be live uh I forget what day we're on I think we're on Wednesday today so it'll be Live this week so soon okay well I don't know I don't know what the not like it's a super big secret or anything but um I don't want to like jump the gun on the announcement for it but we've got a a lot more touring planned nothing nothing crazy like some of these other guys are doing um just yet but uh got a run of shows in late February that are getting pretty solidified we have one confirmed show at the basement in Nashville the smaller one I don't know what the you know the identifying there's two there's two the basements I'm pretty sure but um so that's confirmed and we don't have the support figured out just yet but it'll be we got a run of tour dates coming in February is what I could say about that and we're working on some other ones and um definitely going to try to do some more recording soon to keep you know the music flowing and um gonna try to focus on doing what I can not what I can't it's a good outlook man it's any any future plans to come to the UK hopefully that will be good I mean uh I've noticed more recently because I keep moaning that you know not not enough of the guys that I like or the ladies that I like come to the UK too often it's always the kind of big Stadium acts like Chris Stapleton but you know I was talking online to kobby T Helms recently because I noticed that's so funny you were just brought that up you know about some of us guys coming over and I was I had it in the chamber I'm like go see kobby holes dude he puts on a great show like awesome it's impressive um definitely anybody in the UK watching make sure to go see Kobe T Helms I don't know exactly where in the UK he's gonna be but um here in the near near future he's got some UK tour dates so yeah I think it's March I want to say March he's got a few dates but it's literally one up the road to me so I I thought I'd drop him a a message online just to say you know hey would you be up for uh perhaps me popping over and have a having a chat and you know I'm going to grab some tickets and go watch your show so I'm glad you've you advocated for for Colby and he said he's put up puts on a good show so you know it's more incentive for us to go and see him oh uh yeah we've uh for my any anyone listening in Virginia um it is it hasn't been like fully confirmed so don't shoot me if anything falls through you never know but um me and Colby are working on a show I think it's December 13th here uh down in Southern Virginia um so that should be happening um but like I say nothing like nothing completely Sol solidified just yet that I know of but um um what was the other thing um yeah definitely get definitely do um an episode with kobby t Helms he's a super interesting guy he's a land surveer where he works in land surveying that's like a job you don't even hear about anymore um you know so I think that's super interesting he he just in general very interesting guy yeah it seems it from the stuff that I've read already I don't know if I've read it wrong but it's like he lived in an underground bunker with with his his granddad or something like that it was a I I wouldn't be the least bit surprised he and he's like a musical encyclopedia um you know that I he he knows his stuff he knows he's very well uh he's seasoned in his understanding of the music he plays and you know the people that you should know about so and uh yeah definitely you'll definitely have some interesting talks with him awesome man no I I will definitely be getting tickets and you know for such a young guy to come over as well it' be really interesting to to pop along and yeah experience his show but uh but no that's cool Brennan look I I really appreciate you coming on man I know we had some technical difficulties along the way but that's just the nature of doing things online these days isn't it and you know it gives me the opportunity to speak to the guys that I don't you know I would never get the opportunity to otherwise if I wasn't living in a state so look I appreciate your time buddy um absolutely encourage everyone to go and listen to to Brennan's music all of it and especially his new music uh where's the best place to find I know you're on Instagram and Facebook is there any particular kind of outlet that you prefer people to kind of head towards uh you know any way you want to keep up with what I'm doing is is fine with me Facebook and Instagram mainly I now have a Tik Tok um but I mean that's just mainly G to be you know little videos and stuff if you want to know what I'm doing and everything Instagram and Facebook and like I say I'm I I bought the well say I bought the domain name got I got my domain name for my website in our possession now the website is coming soon so um yeah I'll do my best to to keep updates like a person should if they're in this business until you get your social media manager in place mate yeah yeah yeah awesome look uh thanks again and uh we'll raise our toes to the grit the grind and the Revival cheers everyone for listening and thanks again Brennan take care buddy

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